Last week, a chemical and biomolecular engineering Ph.D. student from the Cullen College of Engineering was awarded best poster at the 2014 annual meeting of the American Society for Gravitational and Space Research in Pasadena, Calif.
Maria Vorontsova’s poster was titled “Coulomb-independent aggregation in protein solutions.” Her poster demonstrated that the electrostatics are not the principle force in clustering mechanisms and that to control cluster populations, the water structuring and hydrophobic interactions need to be tuned.
“Presenting at the annual meeting was a great opportunity for me to meet professors and students from diverse research areas and share our experience towards solving major scientific questions,” Vorontsova said.
Vorontsova is a member of Peter Vekilov’s research group. Vekilov, a professor of chemical and biomolecular engineering, researches the nucleation precursors of protein crystals, protein-rich liquid clusters.